Australia, its history and present condition / containing an account both of the bush and of the colonies, / with their respective inhabitants

To encourage reformation, and check that spirit of idleness which is the mother of mischief, alike in convicts and free people, it is strongly recommended to allow the well-disposed men to profit by their own industry. It is forbidden to pay money to prisoners, at least before they obtain their ticket, but they may be rewarded by tea, sugar, tobacco, Cape wine, extra clothing, &c. Mr. Macqueen had one Scotchman, who, under this system, actually sheared 101 sheep in the day, being allowed at the rate of 2s. 6d. per score upon all above 25, which is the quantity fixed by the government rule for a man to do in a single day. And in the same establishment, acting upon like inducements, might be seen sawyers and fencers working by moonlight; and others making tin vessels for utensils, bows for bullocks, &c., in their huts at night. From this method of management a very great degree of comfort arises, of which Mr. Macqueen gives the following instance in a convict’s feast, which he once witnessed. At Christmas, 1837, one of his assigned servants, (who had a narrow escape from capital conviction at home,) requested leave to draw the amount of some extra labour from the stores, since he wished to give an entertainment to a few of his colleagues, all of whom were named and were well conducted men. The party making this application had been industrious and well-behaved, being besides very cleanly in his hut, and attentive to his garden and poultry, so the request was granted, and his master had the curiosity to observe the style of the festival. The supper consisted of good soup, a dish of fine mullet out of the adjoining river, two large fowls, a piece of bacon, roast beef, a couple of wild ducks and a plum-pudding, accompanied by cauliflower, French beans, and various productions of his garden, together with the delicious water-melon of the country; they had a reasonable quantity of Cape wine with their meal, and closed their evening with punch and smoking.[192]

But the picture of the peculiar class by which a penal colony is distinguished from all others will not be complete without a darker shade of colouring than those upon which we have been gazing. It is a painful feeling to contemplate the past condition of one portion of the convict population, but it is a wholesome exercise of the mind, and has already produced an improvement in that wretched state. Besides, it surely is only fitting that a great, a free, and enlightened nation should know what is the ultimate fate of a part of its outcast population; nor need Englishmen shrink from hearing the history, whilst England herself shrinks not from inflicting the reality of those horrors which have defiled the beautiful shores of Norfolk Island.[193] In 1834 Judge Burton visited this spot, the penal settlement of a penal settlement, for the purpose of trying 130 prisoners, who had very nearly succeeded in overpowering and murdering the military, after which they intended to make their escape. Eight years before this time, Norfolk Island had been first made a penal settlement; and never during all that period had its wretched inhabitants received any such reproof, consolation, or instruction as the Church gives to its members. The picture presented before the mind of the judge was an appalling one, and he can speak of Norfolk Island only in general terms, as being “a cage full of unclean birds, full of crimes against God and man, murders and blasphemies, and all uncleanness.” We know well what bad men are in England. Take some of the worst of these, let them be sent to New South Wales, and then let some of the very worst of these worst men be again removed to another spot, where they may herd together, and where there are no pains taken about their moral or religious improvement, where, literally speaking, no man careth for their souls:—such was Norfolk Island. And what right had England to cast these souls, as it were, beyond the reach of salvation? Where was the vaunted christian feeling of our proud nation when she delivered these poor creatures over to the hands of Satan, in the hope that her worldly peace, and comfort, and property might be no longer disturbed by their crimes? Had she ordered her fleet to put these men ashore on some desolate island to starve and to die, the whole world would have rung with her cruelty. But now, when it is merely their souls that are left to starve, when it is only the means of eternal life that they are defrauded of, how few notice it, nay, how few have ever heard of the sin in which the whole nation is thus involved!

One of the prisoners tried in 1834 was a man of singular ability and great presence of mind, and by him Norfolk Island was represented to be a “hell upon earth;” and so it was as far as the company of evil spirits glorying in evil deeds could make it. “Let a man’s heart,” he added, “be what it will, when he comes here, his man’s heart is taken from him, and there is given to him the heart of a beast.” Another said, “It was no mercy to send us to this place; I do not ask life, I do not want to be spared, on condition of remaining here; life is not worth having on such terms.” Another unhappy being was sentenced to die, and began passionately to exclaim and entreat that he might not die without confession. “Oh, your honour,” he said, “as you hope to be saved yourself, do not let me die without seeing my priest. I have been a very wicked man indeed, I have committed many other crimes for which I ought to die, but do not send me out of the world without seeing my priest!” This poor man was a Roman Catholic; he seems not to have known that he might go at once to his Heavenly Father with a heartfelt acknowledgment of his faults, and so he obtained a rude figure of the cross, and in miserable agony pronounced before that, as he embraced it, his brief exclamations for mercy. Others mentioned in moving terms the hopelessness of their lot, and another of them spoke also of what rendered the state they were in one of utter despair; and the statement which he made was perfectly true: he said, addressing the judge, “What is done, your honour, to make us better? once a week we are drawn up in the square opposite the military barrack, and the military are drawn up in front of us with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, and a young officer then comes to the fence, and reads part of the prayers, and that takes, may be, about a quarter of an hour, and that is all the religion that we see.”[194]

Urged by appeals like these, which no heart could well resist, Judge Burton reprieved the convicted prisoners, until the whole case should be laid before the government, and at least religious consolation and assistance might be obtained for those who were to suffer capital punishment. Eleven of the prisoners were afterwards executed, but not without having been visited by ministers of religion, who were sent for that express purpose from Sydney. The kind and christian judge exerted himself in behalf of the outcast population of Norfolk Island, “that modern Gomorrah,” as it has been called; and, as usual, improvement in bodily comforts or morals was much more willingly undertaken by those in authority than spiritual reformation. His advice respecting the propriety of diminishing the number of prisoners confined together was speedily attended to. His efforts to procure religious reproof, instruction, and consolation were not so soon successful; they were, however, nobly continued, and at length both Protestant and Roman Catholic chaplains were appointed to the island. But this great object was not gained without giving offence. Strange that any party could take offence at efforts of this description, and stranger still that men professing a general regard for religion, and avowedly possessed of consciences exquisitely tender, and of charity unbounded, should, notwithstanding, object to the conscientious and charitable efforts in the cause of religion of which we have just been speaking! However, these impotent struggles have signally failed, and now there are clergy both of the English and Roman Church in Norfolk Island, while the moral condition of the prisoners there is stated to have improved greatly. In 1837 the Rev. Mr. Sharpe was removed thither, at his own request, from Pitt Town in New South Wales, and his labours and ministrations are said to have been useful and effectual. But even here, in this effort to save some of Christ’s lost sheep, the unhappy circumstances of our penal colonies were manifested. When Mr. Sharpe was removed to Norfolk Island, a larger and more important sphere of usefulness, his little parish on the Hawkesbury, was for a time left without a pastor. And this distressing trial is frequently occurring; when illness, or death, or removal, deprives a parish of its spiritual shepherd, for a time at least his place is liable to be left vacant, and his people likely to become as sheep going astray. It appears likewise, from the Report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, that an assistant-chaplain for Norfolk Island was appointed in 1841. There have been two clergymen of the Church of Rome in the island ever since 1838, an arrangement which was alleged to be necessary, in order that the chaplain himself might not be deprived of private confession and absolution.[195] There was no church in the island a few years ago, but a room in one settlement and a barn in the other were the places where divine service was regularly attended. Besides the Morning and Evening Prayers on Sunday, divine service takes place five times during the week, twice in the gaol, twice in the hospital, and once a week for those men who are exempt from work, their sentences having expired. There may, as has been stated, be much hypocrisy in Norfolk Island,[196] but surely the spirit which was offended at efforts that have wrought even these changes in a spot of extreme moral and religious desolation, may, without breach of charity, be pronounced to have been an unclean and evil spirit. Can this language be justly deemed too strong, when the facts already stated are borne in mind; when, (to sum up the whole case in a single example,) it is remembered that in one year, 1838, the colonial government of New South Wales paid 57,740l. 11s. 3d. for its police establishment and gaols, while the very utmost that was spent in providing religious instruction for all the prisoners within the limits of the colony amounted, during the same period, to less than 1000l.?[197]

It is stated on good authority,—that of Sir George Arthur, who was formerly governor of Van Diemen’s Land,—that not more than two convicts in every hundred quit the colony and return to England.[198] The expense and difficulty of procuring a passage home operates as a sufficient check to prevent this being frequently obtained; nor, supposing that the English people would act in a kind and christian spirit towards the most deserving men of this class, would either they or the nation be losers. If the wives and families of the most meritorious men could be brought out to them at the public cost, what reasonable cause of regret would an emancipated convict feel for his home,—the scene of his crimes and of his disgrace,—in the mother country? And with respect to the great objection,—the cost of such a system,—what would that be compared with the advantage which the rapid increase of an English population in Australia is sure to bring, by creating fresh demands for our goods and manufactures? If ours were a wise and understanding nation, if we would spend a portion of our riches in promoting the morals, the comfort, and the religious instruction of our outcast population, we might, in numberless instances, turn the very dregs of our people into means of increasing our prosperity; we might frequently render those that are now the mere refuse of the earth, happy, contented, loyal subjects; and the blessings of them that were ready to perish spiritually would be continually resounding from the far distant shores of Australia upon that Divine Mercy which would have all men to be saved, and upon that nation which would thus have offered itself to be a willing agent and instrument for the furtherance of this gracious design.

In the present condition of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, with so large a proportion of their population in bondage, and such slender means of moral improvement and religious instruction provided for them by the mother country, it would be unreasonable to hope that the convict population can be otherwise than very bad. There may be many exceptions; and at the end of all things here below, it may be found that some of those poor outcasts, and some of the men who have cast them forth to perish, and now despise them, may fill, respectively, the places of the Publican and Pharisee in our Lord’s parable; the convict may leave the throne of judgment justified rather than his master; the poor repentant criminal may be pardoned, while the proud one,—the self-sufficiency of the nation, by which he was transported, and left without further care,—may be condemned. Still, however, the general character of the convicts is undoubtedly bad; and the various modes of deceit and dishonesty practised upon their masters, the love of gambling, of strong liquors, and of every kind of licentiousness prevailing in the penal colonies, would fill a volume of equal size and interest with that which is said to be a favourite book in New South Wales,—the Newgate Calendar. Those that are curious upon these subjects may be referred to the thick volume in blue cover, which contains an account of the labours of the Committee upon Transportation, 1837; but when the evidence therein contained is read, it must be with some grains of allowance; the avowed object of Sir W. Molesworth’s motion for the committee, was enmity against the whole system of transportation; and a large majority of those that sat in the committee were, it is believed, of his opinion; at all events, they belonged to his party in politics. So that, before justice can be done to the real state of the convicts, we want to have evidence of an opposite tendency, like that of Mr. Potter Macqueen, already quoted; and before the question, whether transportation is a desirable mode of punishing, or a likely means of reforming criminals, can be fairly decided, inquiry must be made, not respecting what has been done, but respecting what might have been done, or may even yet be done, in our penal colonies.

Before the subject of the convict population is dismissed, it may be well to notice those called specials; that is, men of education, and of a somewhat higher rank in life than the generality of exiles in New South Wales. These were formerly treated with great consideration; for, after having passed a short period of probation, they were employed as clerks to auctioneers or attornies; nay, the instruction of youth was too often, in default of better teachers, committed into their hands. Nor was this all. In former times, persons of this description have been very much connected with the public press; and the enlightened people of New South Wales have sometimes, it may be feared, been blindly led by an unprincipled convict, when they imagined that they were wisely judging for themselves. The reformation of these specials is said to be more hopeless than that of other prisoners; and very commonly they are confirmed drunkards. Strange materials these from which to form instructors for youth, trustworthy agents of private property, or leaders of public opinion! However, by the progress of emigration, the influence of these men is now superseded; besides which, they have been gradually removed from the government offices, and those that now arrive are employed in hard labour.

CHAPTER XIII.

EMANCIPISTS AND FREE POPULATION.

Respecting the next class of which the population consists in our penal colonies,—that of emancipists, or persons formerly in bondage as convicts, they appear to be pretty nearly what might be expected of a body of men under such circumstances. Although there are many honourable exceptions to the general rule, yet it would seem to be a general rule that roguery and industry are usually connected among them; and that where an emancipist is less inclined to be dishonest, he is more inclined to be idle and improvident; while it often occurs that both faults are found together in one person. Of course, it would be vain to hope that all convicts, or even the majority, perhaps, should become completely reformed; but it is sickening to the heart that has any christian feeling, to find descriptions like the following, given by one amply qualified to judge, of the deplorable moral and social state of many of those unhappy men after their time of service has expired. “The newly-arrived convict” (Mr. MacArthur states) “sees examples immediately before him of men, formerly in the same condition with himself, wallowing in licentiousness, and possessed of wealth, amassed generally by dishonest means, which they continue, in many instances, still to augment, by keeping grog-shops and gambling-houses, by receiving stolen goods, and by other nefarious practices. This is the general conduct of the class of emancipated convicts who acquire property, as well as of some unprincipled adventurers in the class of free emigrants. There are, however, among the emancipated convicts of property exceptions from this prevalent depravity; rare, indeed, and on that account the more honourable.”[199] And numberless, in the earlier history of New South Wales, are the evil consequences which are recorded to have arisen from the necessity which then existed of employing either convicts, or else men recently emancipated, in places of the highest trust and importance. One striking example may suffice; and it is believed that no injustice is done to the class of men now alluded to, when it is stated that the guilty parties were persons belonging to that body. Soon after the departure of Governor Hunter, in 1800, it was discovered that the clerks who were admitted to the registers of the terms of the transportation of the convicts, had altered the sentences of nearly 200 prisoners, on receiving from each a sum equal in value to ten or twelve pounds.[200] Of these examples the early history of the colony is full; but, in later years, it may be hoped, that time, and public opinion, and the tide of emigration, have combined to render the conduct of persons belonging to this class less generally objectionable than it formerly was. The greater portion of the shop-keepers, and what may be called the middling classes in Sydney, were emancipists; and their wealth and influence were so great, that, during the years 1834, 1835, and 1836, one-fourth of the jurors who served in the civil and criminal courts belonged to that body. These persons are often very little educated; and young men possessed of from 1000l. to 2000l. a-year in stock, can sometimes neither read nor write. Cock-fighting, driving, and badger-baiting, are pursuits that occupy youths of this class very frequently; and a showy, tawdry style of dress, engages the attention of the young women. Certainly, it is not of materials of this kind, that the English constitution would have juries composed; and it is not surprising that so large a proportion of jurors, who have themselves once stood at the bar of justice, should be the means of carrying undue partiality for the guilty into the jurors’ box, and also of keeping out of that responsible station all those who can in any way escape its duties.[201] Respectable men will not, if they can avoid it, sit in the same box with men who go in with their minds entirely made up to acquit the guilty, whatever may be the tenor of the evidence to which they have just been listening, whatever the sacredness of the oath they have recently taken. If practical experience is of any real value, then it may safely be pronounced that men, who are scarcely fit to enjoy the privilege of sitting upon juries, are certainly at present unprepared for the introduction of a representative form of legislation and government. The civil juries of New South Wales have held the scales of justice uncommonly even, for they have managed to acquit about 50 per cent. of the persons tried; whereas in Great Britain, and even in Ireland, the acquittals are 19 per cent., and the convictions 81 per cent. A strange, but not unaccountable difference, which, so long as it may continue, will furnish a strong argument of the unfitness of the colony for a representative assembly. Men that have not the principle to put good laws into execution, are very ill qualified to make good laws, or to elect good legislators. And when, to suit party purposes, a clamour is raised about the injustice of denying fresh “constitutional rights” to our fellow-subjects in Australia, we may quietly dispose of this (hitherto absurd and mischievous) claim by referring the very parties raising it to the accounts published, under the sanction chiefly of men of their own opinions, respecting the use made of those rights with which the inhabitants of the penal colonies are already invested. When the evils of the system of transportation are to be exposed, the truth may be told respecting the state of the Australian juries;[202] but why should it not be still declared,—why should not truth always be told,—even at the hazard of checking “liberal principles,” and delaying representative houses of assembly for the Australian colonies, until the time when they may know how to use them, so that these may prove a benefit instead of an evil to them?

Respecting the last and highest class of society in our penal colonies, the free population, no great deal need be said in particular, since, except from peculiar circumstances, they are pretty much the same in character with the bulk of the population in any other country. But their peculiar circumstances must, in fairness to the class last mentioned, be briefly noticed. Undoubtedly, without any disrespect to emigrants, it may be laid down as an acknowledged fact, that hitherto this class, though it has comprised many excellent, clever, and good men, has not usually been composed of the flower of the English nation. Supposing that things are now altered for the better, time was—and that not many years ago—when “every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was discontented,” was apt to swell the tide of emigration to our British colonies in Australia. Upon arriving there they found a regular system of caste established; and since as members of the free population they were at once exalted to the highest places, this was a system which in most cases flattered the pride of the settlers. Possibly many of the faults of the emancipist class might be traced to the treatment they have received at the hands of the free, and these faults react again as causes and excuses for keeping them at still greater distance than ever. And however natural, however necessary, a distinction of ranks is and must be in every society of men, yet nothing can be more unnatural or mischievous than a system of dividing men into castes. Unhappily, this division, the fruitful source of all kinds of evil feeling, has to a great extent prevailed in our penal colonies; and nothing, it may be boldly asserted, except religion will ever root it out. Attempt to continue the exclusive privilege of caste to the free population, and you sow the seeds of a servile rebellion. Open your hands to give concessions and privileges to the emancipists, and you scatter good seed upon the stony rock, you vainly endeavour to satisfy the daughters of the horse-leech. But infuse a christian feeling into all classes, get them to meet in the same church, to kneel at the same table, to partake in the same spiritual blessings, and then you may hope that all, whether free or emancipists, will feel themselves to be members of one another, portions of the same body, held in union of heart and soul by means of the same head; “for by One Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free, and have been all made to drink into One Spirit.”[203]

After all that has been stated respecting the three great classes into which society in Australia is divided, it need scarcely be added that the taste displayed by many of the inhabitants of the metropolis of New South Wales is none of the purest or best. Gay equipages, dashing horses, tandems, and racers, are among the favourite exhibitions of the wealth of the emancipist. For music or paintings but little taste prevails in Sydney, and for books, except those of a very low and worthless character, there is no great demand. A fine house, a fine carriage, fine horses, plenty of spirits to drink, appear to be thought the chief goods of human life; and among persons in every class, the acquisition of money is the one great object. Indeed this last passion, the love of gain, can scarcely be mentioned among the perverted habits by which the Australian colonies are infested, since it seems scarcely possible that the worship of Mammon can be practised more openly or carried much further than it is in the mother country. Yet the temptations to prefer gain to every thing else are unusually strong in these settlements. Professions have been abandoned because they are laborious and unprofitable, while clergymen, medical gentlemen, soldiers, government officers, in short, all classes of men, have made haste to get rich by holding land and stock. An estate, which originally cost little or nothing, grows yearly in value, without a penny being spent upon it; stock speedily increases at very small cost, for there is abundance of pasture for it; and when the settler finds these means of gaining wealth opened to him, he is too apt to devote all his thoughts and energies to this one object. “I have known,” says Captain Grey, “an honourable member of council, and leading magistrate in a colony, take out a retail licence, and add to his already vast wealth from the profits of a gin-shop.”[204]

The evil spirit of covetousness assumes to itself various shapes and appearances according to varying circumstances; and among the characters which it calls into life in Australia, that of a landshark is one of the most remarkable and hateful. When an emigrant arrives at Sydney, he is able, perhaps after considerable delay, to give notice to Government of his wish to purchase some desirable spot of land, which is then selected to be put up to auction; and when it has been duly surveyed, the sale at last takes place. But to the poor emigrant’s astonishment and disappointment the land, which he has chosen so as not to interfere with other property, which is unoccupied, and entirely useless both in a public and private sense,—is bid for, and finally knocked down to another at an unreasonable price.[205] This other person is a “landshark,” who has gained, perchance, a fortune by regularly attending sales and buying up land that is known to be desired by another. The “shark,” true to his name, wishes either to get his opposition bought off by a bribe, or else hopes to sell his bargain at a profit from the unwillingness of his victim to lose any more time or money in gaining a settlement, with the risk of meeting, after all, with a second disappointment. In case of the “shark’s” scheme proving unsuccessful, there is only the small trifle required as earnest of the purchase to be paid; of course he never completes the engagement, and in due time, in a year possibly, the land is declared forfeited to the crown again. Such is the occupation of a “landshark,” and it would be well if these and similar pests of society were confined, like their namesakes of the ocean, to the more sultry latitudes, but unfortunately they are not altogether without their antitypes and imitators in Great Britain.

There is another character, which, if not peculiar to Australia, is called into being only in those colonies where a large extent of land in its natural state remains unappropriated to any individuals. The squatters, as they are called, are men who occupy with their cattle, or their habitations, those spots on the confines of a colony or estate, which have not as yet become any person’s private property. By the natural increase of their flocks and herds, many of these squatters have enriched themselves; and having been allowed to enjoy the advantages of as much pasture as they wanted in the bush, without paying any rent for it to the government, they have removed elsewhere when the spot was sold, and have not unfrequently gained enough to purchase that or some other property. Thus the loneliness, the privations, and the perils of a pastoral life in the bush, have often gained at length their recompense, and the squatter has been converted into a respectable settler. But this is too bright a picture to form an average specimen of the class which we are describing. Unfortunately, many of these squatters have been persons originally of depraved and lawless habits, and they have made their residence at the very outskirts of civilization a means of carrying on all manner of mischief. Or sometimes they choose spots of waste land near a high road, where the drays halt to get water for the night, and there the squatters knock up what is called “a hut.” In such places stolen goods are easily disposed of, spirits and tobacco are procured in return for these at “the sly grog shops,” as they are called; and in short they combine the evils of a gypsy encampment and a lonely beer-shop in England, only from the scattered population, the absence of influential inhabitants, and the deplorably bad characters of the men keeping them, these spirit shops are worse places than would be tolerated in this country. It is stated that almost all the men by whom these resorts of iniquity are kept, are either ticket-of-leave men or emancipists. It is no easy thing to suppress these people, for the squatters, like the black natives, can find a home wherever they betake themselves. And it must be owned, that considerable good has resulted in many instances from these forerunners of civilization having penetrated into a district, and learned some of its peculiarities and capabilities before a settlement in it has been regularly formed. Indeed, it would have been unjust to have been severe with the poor squatter, and his two or three sheep and cattle, when it had long been the practice of the most wealthy landowners in the colony, to send their stock-man with their hundreds of heads of cattle into the bush, to find support exactly in the same way, and without paying anything to government. The rich proprietors have a great aversion to the class of squatters, and not unreasonably, yet they are thus, many of them, squatters themselves, only on a much larger scale; nor are they more inclined, in many instances, to pay rent for their privileges than their more humble brethren. It would appear to be the fairest and best way of dealing with these various descriptions of squatters, to endeavour to cut up, root and branch, the “sly grog shops,” and road-side gentry, while the owner of one sheep, or he that possesses 10,000, should be equally compelled to pay a trifle to government, in proportion to the number of his stock grazing in the bush, and should likewise have his location registered. Some regulations of this kind are, it is believed, proposed, if they have not by this time been brought into operation; and thus we may hope, that whatever benefits the system of squatting may have produced, either as an outlet for restless spirits, or as a means of extending colonization, may still be retained, while the numerous evils that have sprung up along with it may be checked or got rid of. Respecting one thing connected with this subject,—the religious knowledge and spiritual condition of these inhabitants of the wilderness and their children, the christian inquirer cannot but feel anxious. The result of christian anxiety upon this matter cannot be better stated than in the words of one deeply interested about it, and well qualified to weigh the subject with all its bearings. After expressing his thanks to that Divine Providence, which had enabled him, quite alone, to travel through many miles of country almost without cultivation or visible dwellings, the Bishop of Australia finishes his account of his visitation westward, in the year 1841, with the following reflections:—“It would be impossible for any one, without personal observation, to comprehend from mere description what a field for future labour is now opening in these as yet uncultivated, unpeopled tracts which I am continually traversing. But the time is not far distant when many portions of them will be thronged with multitudes; and in what manner those multitudes are to be provided with means of instruction sufficient to retain them in the christian faith, I am not able to foresee; as yet, no such provision is made or promised. But when, in passing through these scenes, reflections such as these have crowded upon me, and I am unable to return a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘How shall this be accomplished?’ I can find no better resource than to silence myself with ‘Deus providebit;’[206] my trust shall be in the tender mercy of God for ever and ever.”

Among the beings which, although not natives of the bush, appear to be peculiar to the wilds of Australia, the class of men called Overlanders must not be omitted. Their occupation is to convey stock from market to market, and from one colony to another. They require, of course, a certain capital to commence business with, and the courage and skill that are needful in these enterprises must be very great, so that many of the overlanders are said to be really men of a superior class. The love of a roving life, the excitement of overcoming dangers both from natural causes and from the fierce attacks of the natives, and the romantic and novel situations in which they are frequently placed, all combine to render some men exceedingly fond of this occupation, which has also another strong recommendation, that it is often very profitable. The magnitude of the adventures thus undertaken would scarcely be credited, and often a whole fortune is risked in the shape of cattle driven across the wilderness. One very important route pursued by the overlanders recently has been in the same direction with Captain Sturt’s daring voyage, namely, from New South Wales to South Australia by the course of the Murray. An instance is mentioned by Captain Grey of an overlander who arrived at Adelaide in March 1840 from Illawarra, and his stock at the end of his journey is reckoned up, and found at a moderate computation to be worth no less than 13,845l.[207] And during fifteen months, including the whole of 1839 and part of 1840, there were brought by the overlanders from New South Wales into South Australia 11,200 head of horned cattle, 230 horses, and 60,000 sheep, the value of the whole of which amounted to about 230,800l. Importations of stock immediately add a value to land, for what is the use of pasture without animals to feed upon it? And indeed so large an introduction of those primitive riches, flocks and herds, is almost sure to give a spur to industry, and to assist the increasing prosperity of a rising colony. Under the influence of this cause it is related that land in Western Australia, which was bought for 23l. an acre in December, 1839, was sold for 60l. an acre in February, 1840. And in other colonies where overland communication takes place, instead of the cattle being brought by sea, as in Western Australia, the effect is yet more astonishing. There is much that is noble to admire in the character of the overlanders, and their efforts have been productive of great advantage to our recent colonies; indeed, it is perhaps in a great measure to their exertions that the very rapid progress of Port Phillip and South Australia may be ascribed. But there appears to be a certain wildness about their character, which, while it fits them admirably for the pursuit which they have chosen, renders them restless and uneasy in more quiet and domestic spheres. The love of gain, too, is rather more of a ruling passion with them than it ought to be, but that is a fault by no means peculiar to the overlanders. Yet it affords a curious comparison and a fresh proof of our nature being a fallen one, when we come quietly to contrast the pains taken, the toils endured, and the risks encountered, in order to supply a colony with “the meat that perisheth,” against the indifference, feebleness, and apathy, which are exhibited about the spiritual necessities of its inhabitants. Erect the standard of worldly profit, and thousands will flock to it, unscared by danger, unwearied by labour. But, meanwhile, how slow is the banner of the Church in being unfurled, how few rally around it, when it is displayed; in short, how much wiser in their generation are the children of this world than the children of light!

CHAPTER XIV.

STATE OF RELIGION AND EDUCATION IN AUSTRALIA.

The religious state of the inhabitants of the Australian colonies, especially of the two oldest and most populous settlements, has been so frequently the subject of allusion in this work, that the reader must already have become acquainted with its general aspect. Nevertheless, there are many interesting particulars which have not yet been detailed; and no subject, surely, can concern more nearly the mother country than the religious condition of her children and offspring. Upon the mere surface of things, judging from appearances only, the religious habits of England would seem perhaps to be transferred to the Australian colonies no less perfectly than its social customs; but, although the resemblance to our spiritual pride and spiritual ignorance, our needless divisions and contempt of lawful authority, is perfect enough, except when it occasionally degenerates into caricature, yet, in points more deserving of imitation, the likeness between the mother country and her daughters is not always so striking. Probably it would be difficult to sum up the matter better than in the words of Bishop Broughton, who says, “My own opportunities of observation have been very numerous, and I do not hesitate to say, that, in either colony, surrounded, it cannot be dissembled, by much that is base and disgusting, there is, nevertheless, an extensive, and in point of actual influence, a preponderating proportion of integrity and worth, which, if suitably encouraged and supported now, there may hereafter spring up a wise and understanding people to occupy this land.”[208]

The way in which the Lord’s Day is observed in New South Wales, or Van Diemen’s Land, may serve for an index of the general amount of religious feeling among many of its inhabitants. Sunday desecration,—despising the day of rest which the Lord has appointed, is notoriously one of the first steps which a man is tempted to take in that downward course of sin which leads him to the penal colonies; and accordingly, it must be expected that a large quantity of the old leaven should remain working in the convict population. And especially was this to be anticipated, when so little pains were taken to teach them better things, for the absence of religious instruction immediately furnishes an excuse for disregard of the day of rest, and renders that neglect which was before inexcusable, in some measure unavoidable. According to Dr. Lang, religion is but seldom taken into account by the majority of the colonists in their dealings with their convict-servants. In at least as many as four cases out of five, he says, that no attention to the day is paid, but frequently it is spent in weighing out rations, settling accounts, or paying and receiving visits; while the men, whom it is contrary to law to set to work on a Sunday, are often allowed to cultivate ground for themselves, upon the plea that, if they were not so occupied, they would be doing worse. In the opinion of Judge Burton, the want of occupation on the Sunday was a cause of many robberies being committed, and some of the worst crimes that had been brought under his notice had taken place upon that day. Mr. Barnes says, speaking of the men at the penal settlement of Macquarie Harbour, “I believe more crime or wickedness was committed on Sunday, when they were ringing the bell for church-service, than on any other day of the week.” These opinions are confirmed and strengthened by men of various parties, and different plans have been proposed. That of increasing the number of churches and of the clergy is obviously one of the most likely to succeed, but its success must, in the nature of things, not be very speedy. It was stated by one witness before the Committee upon Transportation, that, when the means of public worship have been provided, the convicts should be regularly mustered and taken to church, which, he thinks, would have a good effect; but what is really wanted is that they should come to church, and not merely be taken thither. One member of the Committee inquired whether all the present churches were filled, and the witness replied that they were not; but this is rather a proof of the need of additional religious instruction than an argument against furnishing it. If among so many souls the few existing places of divine worship are not all fully occupied, is not this a proof of the desolate state of the Lord’s vineyard in that country? Is not this a sufficient reason for earnestly endeavouring to increase the number of the labourers in the vineyard? The heathenism of a considerable portion of a population nominally christian, manifestly tends to thin the congregations even of existing churches. But the want of church extension, and the dearth of ministers, tends to produce and increase this heathenism, and therefore it indirectly tends to diminish the numbers of the present attendants upon divine service. And what a mockery, in some instances, has the so-called divine service hitherto been! The director-general of roads in Van Diemen’s Land, some years ago, chose to place catechists and clergy under a ban, though there was no great risk of his gangs being much troubled by them, when they had so many other duties to fulfil. And what was the system which this wise manager of roads chose to substitute for the teaching of Christ’s ministers? At every road-station, daily, morning and evening, readings of the sacred Scriptures were established, and “devotional exercises” were added on the sabbath. Well, but who officiated? Let Archdeacon Hutchins reply in the very words used by him, when the matter was brought before the notice of the government in 1837. “These readings of the Scriptures were performed generally, if not always, by some of the very worst of the convicts themselves, selected, no doubt, for the purpose, not on account of their wickedness, but of their abilities. They are the best readers, or the cleverest fellows; and therefore, amongst rogues, generally the greatest. These are men by whom, as far as the director is concerned, the seed of religious knowledge is scattered among the road parties. How far there may be a rational hope of the Divine blessing accompanying such endeavours, I leave to be declared by any one possessed of common sense and some little acquaintance with Scripture.”[209] Even Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin, only “made priests of the lowest of the people;” he did not, that we read of, appoint the vilest characters he could find to that office.

The greater part of the settlers in New South Wales and Tasmania have been derived from those classes, who, in England, except in the rural districts, have, until recently, been well nigh shut out from their parish churches; and, in many instances, their mode of life here was little likely to lead them to a regular attendance upon the public worship of God, even where there was room for them. But nothing more surely produces distaste and carelessness in this matter than the total absence of all regularity respecting it. The truly religious soul, indeed, when banished by circumstances from the temple of the Lord, is always inquiring with the royal Psalmist, “When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?” But the careless man, the worldly-minded man, indeed the greater part of mankind, it is to be feared, feel no longing desires of this kind. The further they are removed from the courts of the Lord’s house, the less they think about its blessings, the less concern they take about religion; so that when an opportunity is offered them of joining in public worship, it actually is viewed as a trouble instead of a privilege, and no small pains are taken to escape from it. For example, it is stated by Mr. Mudie, that when a clergyman had been able to attend, and divine service was about to commence, upon his estate, he noticed but few of the convicts there, the rest declining to come, upon the plea of their being Roman Catholics. But this trick was of no avail, for their master, being satisfied that they merely wanted to escape attendance, and to employ the opportunity thus afforded them of prowling about and thieving, insisted upon all these Romanists coming up and sitting outside the building in which the others were assembled. The next time the clergyman came, they were all Protestants. But in what a wretched state of depravity must men be who can thus deliberately tell a lie, in order to avoid joining in the worship of the Lord their Maker!

To provide for the spiritual wants of our penal colonies would be, under the most favourable circumstances, no easy matter; and in the actual condition of affairs, it is a most difficult and discouraging task. For not only are the ordinary obstacles arising from man’s fallen nature to be surmounted, but the effect of unusually evil influence and bad example is to be counteracted in a convict population. And far from opposing this mischievous spirit by “endeavouring to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace,” professing believers are nowhere more at variance than in Australia; so that the work of turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the Just is perpetually being disturbed by strife and jealousies among those who ought to be one, even as Christ and the Father are One. There, as it has been well observed, “the Church stands upon her own merits, her own divine right; there all the attested grievances of the Dissenters, secular and political, are removed; no tithes, no church-rates, no exclusive state support.” And yet there, it may be added, the fierce contentious spirit which rages in England is unchanged in character, and the way of the Church is just as evil spoken of in New South Wales as in the mother country. The only grievance the dissenters can complain of now in Australia is that assistance is afforded to the Church to a larger amount than they would like. But this is grievance enough for them to raise an outcry about. And hence arise fresh hindrances to the progress of true religion in these settlements. There are other spirits besides the unclean spirits of infidelity and iniquity which the Church has here to contend against.

The language of a very zealous and active clergyman of Australia is this:—“Give us clergy and churches, and I will ensure congregations and a vast spread of the gospel in the Church of Christ by means of the Church of England.”[210] But, so pitiable is the effect of religious strife, that rather than allow the necessary means to be given for this purpose, many would be content to leave things in their present miserable state; and although, as in the mother country, the majority of the population belong to the Church of England, yet the minority, in all its little sections, unite in grudging every effort that is permitted, every single pound that is spent, by the government in aid of the Church. There is no communion that can pretend to lay claim to the religious instruction of the people; it would be too absurd to propose that the English nation should entrust the religious training of a colony, like that of New South Wales,[211] containing upwards of 70,000 persons belonging to the national Church, into the hands of the Presbyterians, with their 13,153 souls, or into those of the Methodists and other dissenters, with their 5,093 souls, or even to the Romanists, with their 35,690 souls! And accordingly, since it was hopeless to get this important and responsible office exclusively for themselves, all parties really would seem to have conspired together to keep it, at all events, from falling into the possession of that body to which it of right belongs,—the national Church of England and Ireland,—a Church which the Presbyterians do not generally deny to be scriptural, and which the Romanists, by their peculiar hostility, proclaim to be, in the best and oldest meaning of the word, essentially Protestant. Under feelings of this description, the Roman Catholics, and their “Presbyterian brethren,” (as they can condescend to call them when it answers their purpose,)[212] have been acting in Australia for some years past; and, aided by the potent force of agitation upon a government which “cared for none of these things,” except how it might “please the people,” they have been successful. Spurning the very name of toleration, and despairing of exclusive establishments for their own communion, they have succeeded in giving birth to a system of joint-establishment for three communions of Christians, and encouragement and assistance for as many more as the government may see fit to patronise. In 1836, the system which now continues in operation was commenced by Sir R. Bourke, then Governor of New South Wales, who, in proposing this plan, expressed a confident hope, (which has never yet been fulfilled,) that thus people of different persuasions “would be united together in one bond of peace.” It is pitiable to see a fellow-creature, and him, too, a man in authority, borrowing an expression from a passage of Holy Scripture, (Eph. iv. 3,) while he is at the very time forgetting the duty there enforced. The eye that glances upon the words “bond of peace,” must be very careless or very wilful, if those other words, “unity of Spirit,” or the words below, in the following verses of the same chapter, altogether escape its notice. The principal features of the new system are these. It affords assistance in money towards building a church or chapel, and a dwelling-house for the minister, in all cases where not less than 300l. have been raised by private subscriptions. It provides a stipend for the support of ministers of religion, upon certain conditions, at the rate of 100l. per annum, where there is a population, of 100 adult persons, (including convicts,) who shall subscribe a declaration stating their desire to attend his place of worship, and shall be living within a reasonable distance of the same. If 200 adults in similar circumstances sign the declaration, a stipend of 150l. is granted; and if 500 persons sign it, the stipend is 200l.—the highest amount ever granted towards the support of any one officiating teacher of religion. In places where there are less than 100 adults ready to subscribe, or where there is no church or chapel yet erected, the governor may contribute a stipend not exceeding 100l. per annum, but in the latter case 50l. must be promised also from private sources. A certain proportion of free sittings, (one-fourth, according to Lang, at least one-sixth part, according to Burton,) is to be reserved in each building. Such are the principal points of the system, and, according to the governor’s regulations, the assistance thus offered is limited chiefly to the Church of England, the Church of Rome, and the Scottish Kirk, which “three grand divisions of Christians”[213] are thus made, in fact, the three established communions of New South Wales.

Undoubtedly good has resulted from the enactment of this law in 1836, for before that there were scarcely any means open of obtaining help towards religious instruction, whereas certain means are open now, and have been very much used. Yet because some good has resulted in this way, the evil spirit and wretched tendency of the measure must not be overlooked. All the good that has resulted might have been obtained without any of its accompanying evil, if a perfect toleration had been established, the National Church properly endowed, and a sufficient supply of Roman Catholic priests or Presbyterian teachers for the convict population of those persuasions liberally supported by government, as in the gaols in Ireland. In this case, the poor convict, who is not permitted to possess money, would have had the consolations of religion, however imperfect, offered to him in his own way, while the free settler would have had the doors of the national Church opened to him, or the liberty, in case of his dissenting from that, of providing for himself a separate conventicle. Where would have been the hardship of this arrangement? Or why should the voluntary system, which is, in the northern hemisphere, so highly extolled by many Irish Romanists and not a few Presbyterians, in the southern, be thought a punishment and degradation? Thus, “not only has equal protection,—for God forbid that we should ever repine at equal protection,—but equal encouragement been given by government to every description of religious faith, and every denomination of professing Christians, in some of the most important dependencies of the British crown.”[214] Is not this, it may be asked, the very course which a mild and tolerant heathen government would pursue? And is the same policy, which would probably be followed by heathen rulers, either right or expedient in rulers professing themselves to be Christians?

Certainly, whatever other arrangements might have been adopted, those that have been made are faulty in principle; and this is true, although it be confessed that some good has arisen from them, since through them an increased supply of religious teaching has been afforded to the colonists, however reluctantly wrung from the government in behalf of the Church of England. The faultiness of principle in these arrangements is thus stated by the present Bishop of Australia, a man well fitted to the responsible station which he fills in Christ’s Church. “By the government plan of aid,” he observes, “encouragement is given to the lax and dangerous opinion, that there is in religion nothing that is either certain or true. The government virtually admits that there is no divinely-instituted form of church-membership, or of doctrine, otherwise that one would in preference receive its support. The consequence is that the most awful truths of Christianity, which have been acknowledged and preserved in the Church from the beginning, are now frequently spoken of as merely sectarian opinions, to which no peculiar respect is due.”[215] The Roman Catholics hailed this measure with delight, for what to them can be a greater triumph or a more gratifying spectacle than to behold a great Protestant nation, inquiring, as Pilate did, “What is truth?” The Presbyterians, likewise, and Protestant Dissenters, were not behind their brethren of Rome (though there were fewer voices to join the shout) in greeting so exquisitely liberal a measure, which is actually founded upon some of their favourite notions respecting the harmlessness of divisions, the total invisibility of the Church, and the hatefulness of “a dominant episcopacy.” The rejoicings which were to be heard in quarters apparently so opposite boded no good from the measure to the Church of England; and, certainly, from the strange way in which this law has been carried into operation, so far as that communion is concerned, the Government are not to be thanked for any favourable results that have followed. Through the activity of the members of our Church, both at home and in Australia, an increased supply of churches and of clergy has indeed been obtained; but this has, in most instances, literally been wrung from the ruling powers; while the only boon that was freely given,—a most valuable boon, it is willingly acknowledged,—was the appointment of a bishop instead of an archdeacon. However, the value of the boon thus obtained was lessened by the disregard shown by Government to the wants of the Church in Australia. The Bishop returned from England, after his consecration in 1836, alone, without being accompanied by a single clergyman, because, while Roman Catholic priests and Presbyterian teachers were still eligible to receive, and did receive, the aid of government, the Church of England was to remain as it was, notwithstanding its pressing wants and increasing numbers. All allowances towards the expense of the passage, or residence, or means of support for any additional clergymen, were refused. During five years, from 1832 to 1836, the number of chaplains continued to be the same, except in 1833, when there were only fifteen instead of sixteen in the estimates; and this was not because no increase was needful,—for when an outfit of 150l., and a yearly salary of 50l. were generously furnished to twenty clergymen by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, in consequence of the extreme necessity of the case, every one of these were instantly employed. A subscription, amounting to 3,000l. was at this time raised in England in behalf of the Church in Australia, and when the Government perceived that public opinion was awakened in its favour, and that they had succeeded in giving their friends and supporters a tolerably good start, they at length agreed, with the tact peculiar to them, to place the Church of England (at least nominally) upon the same footing with the two other “grand divisions of Christians.”

Now, therefore, the same assistance in outfit, and the same amount of salary proportioned to the numbers of the congregation, are awarded, according to the Act, to the teachers of each of these three divisions. And thus, as Sir R. Bourke informs Lord Glenelg, in 1837, ministers of the Church of England have been forthcoming to “answer (in many instances) the calls of congregations of their communion;” while, as a matter of course, where no call is heard, no answer is attempted to be given. How very opposite is this modern idea of the sheep calling the shepherd to them, from that pattern set before us by the good Shepherd, who “came to seek and to save that which was lost!” But still, though nominally upon an equality with the others, it is distressing to find how hard a measure has been dealt to the Church in New South Wales; how studiously every petty advantage that could be taken has been taken of it by a Government calling itself liberal and impartial. A few instances of this shall be given, which may serve to show how our brethren in the colonies have been treated, and how we should ourselves be treated, if dissent and Romanism could get the upper-hand in our native country; for then, at the very best, the clergy would be placed, as they now are in Australia, “in a state of dependence upon two unstable supports;—the will of Government, and the disposition of the people.”[216] At present, the latter is favourable enough in Australia; but the good-will of the Government towards the Church has been indeed strangely shown within the last few years. When the other communions and persuasions in the colony had nearly, if not altogether, provided themselves with the number of ministers that the law would allow them, while the wants of the Church remained, to a great extent, unsupplied, advantage was taken of an expression in a letter of the governor, Sir George Gipps,[217] and a limitation was imposed upon the government assistance by Lord Normanby, which operated exclusively to the hurt of the Church of England. In a like spirit it was that the governor of New South Wales refused to consider as private contributions for schools either sums granted by the societies in England, or by their diocesan committee in New South Wales; although, in both instances, the money was raised entirely by private subscription. The inconvenience, delay, and disappointment which this one arbitrary rule occasioned were astonishing; and to those who took delight in balking the efforts and thwarting the good works of our Church, it must have been very gratifying. So, too, must the refusal, in 1841, of a piece of land for a site of a church and parsonage in the wild district on the banks of the Morrumbidgee, containing 1,200 souls, dispersed about over a very extensive range of country.

Another example of similar conduct has occurred since the change of ministry at home, which would, it might have been hoped, have infused a better feeling into the colonial authorities. At the end of 1841, the Bishop proposed to erect, in certain spots, small wooden churches, as the only means of obtaining churches at all; trusting, that after these had stood forty or fifty years, they might be replaced by buildings of a higher and more lasting character. The average cost of these humble little buildings was to be from 100l. to 120l.; and they were intended for very poor districts; but since the outlay did not amount to 300l., the Government would give nothing, and no effort was made to introduce a modification of the law (supposing that to have been needful) in order to meet such cases. Instances to the same effect might easily be multiplied. In New South Wales land is comparatively cheap, and a horse is an indispensable necessary for a clergyman; but no part of the government grant is allowed to be spent in purchasing more than an acre for the site of a church, and half an acre for a house and garden. “To extend the latter allowance to any quantity of land from which an income might be derived, would increase the emoluments of the minister, at the public expense, beyond what the Act contemplates;” so the Bishop of Australia was assured by official authority in 1836. But enough of these miserable instances of state-peddling in ecclesiastical establishments. “There is no semblance,” to use Mr. Gladstone’s words, “in any part of these arrangements, of a true and sound conception of the conscientious functions of government in matters of religion.”[218] May we venture to hope that the present ministry, of which the writer of the above is a distinguished member, may exhibit in their conduct and arrangements, both in the colonies and at home, a more sound and true conception of their duty than was ever shown by their predecessors? Such hopes, undoubtedly, are entertained by a portion of the British public, not unimportant either in numbers or in moral and political influence. Nevertheless, the zealously attached members of the Church of England need not to be reminded of a truth which is frequently brought before them in the circle of its daily service. They know that “it is better to trust in the Lord than to put any confidence in princes.” They are sure that, if theirs is a living branch of Christ’s Holy Catholic Church, many a weapon will be formed against it, but yet “no weapon that is formed against it shall prosper.”

It would be wearying to the reader to attempt to enter into the same details respecting schools as have been stated with regard to churches. The fate of the Church and School Corporation has elsewhere been related.[219] Suffice it to say, then, that the same spirit of hostility or indifference has been equally exhibited in both cases; indeed, it would be strange if the bitter enemies, and feeble or false friends of that system of religious instruction which is carried on among the adult population by our national Church, were not alike vigorous in their opposition, or impotent in their friendship, to the system of religious training among the infant population which is wrought out by our national schools. However, in mentioning the subject of schools, the unsuccessful attempt of the Government, in 1836, to saddle the colony of New South Wales with schools conducted upon the modern Irish system, must not be left unnoticed. On this occasion, it may be observed, the Presbyterian, Independent, Baptist, and Wesleyan “denominations of Christians,” were actually forced to leave, for a while, their liberal friends and allies of the Church of Rome, and to seek the assistance, and rejoice in the strength of the “exclusive” and “dominant” Church of England. It is really curious to observe these various sects seeking out the Bishop of Australia, and requesting him to preside at their meeting in opposition to the proposed measure; and since, although he disagreed with them in a matter not then at issue, namely, the need of creeds and catechisms in imparting religious instruction, nevertheless, as he agreed entirely with them in the matter which was at issue,—the propriety and necessity of using the Holy Scriptures in religious teaching,—he complied with their request, presided at their meeting, and signed their petition. He also presented a petition from himself on the same subject; for the Government had so contrived to shuffle between the Archdeacon and the Bishop, that Dr. Broughton, who had very recently been consecrated, could, just at the time when the education scheme was to have passed, claim a seat in the legislative council in neither capacity. It so happened, that by an official neglect at the Colonial-office in London, no patent, including the Bishop as a member, had been forwarded to New South Wales; so when he reached Sydney, he found himself excluded from his seat in the council during the whole time in which this matter was under discussion there. The plan appeared to be successful; 3,000l. was devoted towards establishing the new scheme, and an honoured name, that of “National Schools,” was pilfered, and bestowed upon those that were projected in Sydney. But, in this instance, high principle and popular feeling were united against the Irish scheme; and as it began with a blunder at the Colonial-office, so it proved to be little better than a blunder throughout. The schools proposed were never established; and since that time the Roman Catholics have made a different sort of attempt to gain educational power, by obtaining separate sums for their own schools, and swamping the members of the Church of England, under the honourable but much abused appellation of Protestants, in the general quagmire of heresy and schism. However, this second effort, which was made with the sanction of the Government, was defeated chiefly (under Providence) by the zeal and ability of the Bishop; and whoever is desirous of seeing a noble specimen of clear reasoning and manly eloquence, will be gratified and improved by reading the Bishop of Australia’s speech upon the occasion of this scheme having been proposed by Sir George Gipps in the legislative council. Certainly, when we consider how admirably Bishop Broughton demolished Sir George Gipps’s scheme, we must own that the tact was very acute,—or at least the mistake rather suspicious,—which shut him out of the legislative council when Governor Bourke’s plan was in agitation.

Besides the schools assisted by Government for the education of the lower orders, there are, of course, many private schools in the Australian colonies; and it is believed that these important establishments are no longer so commonly under the direction of men that have been convicts as they formerly were. Undoubtedly, one who has been transported may, perchance, turn out afterwards to be a good instructor of youth, but what christian parent would willingly risk his child’s religious and moral progress upon a chance, a possibility, of this kind? The King’s School at Paramatta is an excellent establishment, founded and conducted upon the principles of the Church of England. Sydney College is another well-conducted school, but its principles are more open to objection. “It is to be believed,” as has been remarked, “that a desire to gain the support of men of all religious principles, led to the Sydney College being founded on none;” and it was scarcely possible to fall into a greater error than that of passing almost unnoticed the one thing needful. It is true, that prayers are used daily in this school, and there seems, from Judge Burton’s account of it, to be much that is good and praiseworthy in its management and details. But a school where the children of Protestants, Roman Catholics, and Jews, meet together, must be, at best, an odd jumble; and the religious tendency of such an education must be very questionable.